Argentina in pictures: On the edge of social chaos
When President Mauricio Macri came to power in 2015, he inherited a bad economy from his predecessor. Now he's left a more messed up economy for his successor, while public anger has reached a tipping point.
A woman searches for food in the trash in the financial district of the city of Cordoba, during rush hour.
For the last four years, Argentina's President Mauricio Macri implemented free market, neoliberal policies to jumpstart the country's ailing economy, but the country continues to be in economic turmoil, the third major financial crisis since democracy returned in 1983.
Macri inherited a bad economy from former president and newly elected Vice President Cristina Fernandez - with worrying levels of poverty and a high inflation rate. Four years into the presidency, Macri hasn't been able to fix the economy: almost 40 percent of the population lives in poverty, including 50 percent of the country’s infants. Nationwide unemployment is at 10 percent among the working population and more than 30 percent counting those who don’t have a steady income or job. With a devaluation of the national currency - the peso - of more than 300 percent and an inflation rate of more than 50 percent over the past year, the economy seems more like a ticking time bomb than an opportunity for foreign or local investments.
President-elect Alberto Fernandez won the election with the promise of reversing all of these conditions but will have to have to walk on thin ice to maintain social peace, which has been challenged by decades of inequality and rising unemployment.
This school, which is supposed to assist more than 200 children with disabilities, is a symbol of decadence and abandonment. The construction began in 2003, and has passed from administration to administration without being finished. Macri received the school nearly finished in 2015, but it has remained in the same state since then. Macri’s administration also revoked more than 100,000 disability pensions in his first year in office. Unquillo, Cordoba.
Until recently almost a hundred skilled workers built engines in this factory in Jesus Maria, but due the lack of demand, this subsidiary of MAN compensated its workers and closed indefinitely. Cordoba, which is known as “Argentina’s Detroit” due to its car industry, has been left with more than 70 percent of its industries’ capacity unused, with the consequent loss of thousands of jobs.
Until recently and for over 25 years Sergio worked in the production plant of MWM in Jesus Maria. His salary was around $800 per month. “I’ve been living like I was inside a jar, and it's hard to come out after 25 years and being 52 years old; figure out what can I do for the next 15 years before I can retire,” says Aramayo.
Commerce has taken a huge hit due to the crisis. Its estimated that more than 30,000 businesses have closed their doors since Mauricio Macri took office in 2015. Cordoba city.
Hugo Albado is the vice chairman of Cordoba’s shoe industry association. The sector entered in deep crisis with the opening of importation, a decision the government took in its early days of office in 2015; by then the sector was already working at 50 percent of its capacity. Albado had to fire every employee he had in early 2019 and close his doors. “You can’t have any industry with an interest rate of more than 70 percent, it makes it impossible to finance any working operation,” says Albado.
Cuchallo is a mining union leader in Cordoba. The union has been in constant conflict with the international cement company Holcim, which has operations in Cordoba. The cement industry depends largely of the local construction market, which has been largely paralised by the crisis. “With no intervention from the state this is only going to get worse before it gets better,” says the veteran unionist leader.
Katherine, 25, and 31-year-old Nathalie work and share an improvised tortilla stand in the outskirts of La Calera, in greater Cordoba, one of the urban populations most affected by the nationwide crisis. Together they manage to earn between $10 and $30 dollars per day. “We don’t live, we survive,” says Nathalie.
Marta shows the inside of a bag of food supplies provided by the National Ministry of Social Assistance. The 71-year-old widow says that this time the bag might last her a couple of weeks. “It must be because elections are near...this year we didn’t receive assistance every month, and sometimes bags would come with only three or four products.”
A survey made by a group of NGOs from the city of Buenos Aires, found that in the period of 2017 to 2019 the city nearly doubled its homeless population, with a total of 7,250 people, of which 870 are children. For nearly half of the homeless population this year was their first experience living on the streets. Palermo district, Buenos Aires.
In just the past year, the gap between those who earn the least and the most increased to 18 to 20 times according to the National Government. In the picture a view of the slum Villa 31 near the financial district of Buenos Aires, one of the major beneficiaries of Macri’s policies.
The man in the picture wearing expensive work shoes was laid almost unconscious next to an empty box of wine. A popular saying in many Latin American protests these days is: “It’s not depression, its capitalism”. Retiro district, Buenos Aires.
Delivery apps and the ‘Uber economy’ are for many young men and women the only accessible jobs out there; but these newly created jobs lack of many labour rights that for Argentinians have been a given since the late 1950s.
Agustin, 26, and Luis, 21, are collectors who work as long as 12 hours a day in order to collect the 300 kilograms of cardboard and boxes necessary to receive a payment of nearly $5 per day each. “We barely make it to buy enough food, and if I get sick or injured then my kids won't eat,” says Agustin. City of Cordoba.
After a big loss in the primaries, Macri managed to run a considerably successful election, regaining almost two million votes. He did this by running a nationwide campaign exacerbating differences and old anti-peronist hatreds very popular among middle and upper class senior citizens. For his final act he managed to gather almost 100,000 people in the city of Cordoba, where almost seven out of 10 voters elected the soon to be ex-president for office again.
Throughout the campaign the peronist coalition led by former president Cristina Fernandez and her former Chief of Staff and newly elected President Alberto Fernandez have promised to change the current conditions of the economy while maintaining a payment agenda with shareholders of the very unstable foreign debt taken by the country in recent years. The graffiti on the left side of the picture says: “Everything for the people, nothing for the debt”. Financial district, city of Cordoba.
More than 50 percent of Argentina’s children live under the poverty line, of which nearly three million are extremely poor. One out of three children don't have three meals guaranteed per day, in a country that produces food for nearly 400 million. Experts believe that the lack of good and sufficient nutrients during growth ages could have unprecedented consequences in the near future. A future that for children living in these conditions seems mostly uncertain. Child in a slum in the city of Cordoba.
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